


When the stars have all gone out (You'll still be burning so bright)

by kereia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Ethical Dilemmas, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-16 17:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16958118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kereia/pseuds/kereia
Summary: On one fateful night, Rey turns the tide of war. Unwilling to share how heavy the consequences of that night weigh on her, she hides from her friends and even tries to cut Poe out of her life and her heart.Fortunately, Poe is too damn stubborn to let her run away forever.





	When the stars have all gone out (You'll still be burning so bright)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/gifts).



"If it takes my whole life  
I won't break, I won't bend  
It will all be worth it  
Worth it in the end  
Cause I can only tell you what I know  
That I need you in my life  
When the stars have all gone out  
You'll still be burning so bright" 

**" _Answer_ " by Sarah McLachlan**

 

 

When the First Order had unleashed their battering ram canon against the survivors who had sought refuge on Crait, Poe had been too preoccupied trying to stop it to feel fear.

When he watched Rey place herself in front of another one of these superlaser weapons months later in order to protect the town that had given them shelter, it was the single most terrifying moment of his life.

The fact that Rey somehow managed to absorb the blast and then deflected all that deathly heat and power back at the First Order fleet looming in orbit didn't do anything to make his heart stop hammering in his throat.

It _did_ stop his feet halfway across the open fields – halfway to reaching her, to pulling her out of the line of fire, to keeping her safe.

Rey was bathed in light, made incandescent by it, until she glowed from within – a planet-bound sun lighting up the night sky until it stretched above her in shades of burnt orange.

The light blinded him until he had to shield his eyes, but even then he could see it shining through his lids and hands – a red shimmer turning his skin and bones translucent – until a blast of heat swept him off his feet.

How could one person, even one gifted with the Force, survive such an onslaught?

His ears ringing, Poe blinked up at the sky. It was no longer glowing, but had returned to its original state of inky black. Above him, the stars twinkled bright and steady in their indifference to the war that raged amongst them. He watched Star Destroyers and Dreadnaughts fall apart, watched TIE-fighters and detritus from the larger vessels burn up in the atmosphere.

A hand came down on his shoulder, and Poe turned his aching head to look up at a young women with anxious eyes who was leaning over him.

 _Rose_ , his sluggish brain remembered after a moment. He tried to sit up, but pain pierced his skull and rippled down his spine, stifling his efforts.

Rose pushed him back down. "It's okay," she said quietly, though the horrified expression on her face betrayed the lie. "Everything– everything will be okay."

Her hands came away from his shoulder covered in blood.

"R– Rey?"

"Leia and Finn are looking after her. You need to rest, Poe. It'll be okay."

His pulse thundered in his ears, and the edges of his vision turned dark. Rose's voice faded, leaving him to drown in the depth of her sympathetic gaze.

 

* * *

 

**One year later**

 

His bag was packed by the time Finn returned to the barracks.

"Where are you off to?" Finn wondered as he slipped out of his jacket and threw it over the back of a chair.

The quarters they shared weren't spacious, but they'd stayed in smaller places back when any shelter, no matter how cramped, had been enough to rest for a few hours.

With the First Order defeated for almost a year, there was little fighting left to do. Most of Poe's time these days was spent coordinating the New Alliance's efforts to rebuild a military infrastructure that had been thrown into disarray after Hosnia Prime had been destroyed. Most of the people under his command wanted to go home to friends and family they hadn't seen in too long, and General Organa was busy forming a working government out of the ashes of the New Republic.

It wasn't that he didn't have plenty of things to do, but rather that there was _one_ thing that neither Finn nor Leia allowed him to do, and the resultant restlessness sat underneath his skin and bled into his bones until he'd woken up this morning and decided that enough was enough.

He was done playing by their rules.

"I'm leaving," he told Finn, not unkindly, but determined. "I'm going to find Rey."

Finn froze with his hand on the cap of the beer bottle he'd pulled from the tiny fridge they shouldn't technically have had in their room, but that had somehow found its way there anyway, after a long night celebrating and a hangover that made them swear off alcohol for almost a week.

"Did Leia tell you..."

"No, Leia did not tell me where she is, but I've been waiting for a year. I'm not waiting any longer."

Finn sighed and put the bottle down on the table. "Poe, she doesn't want to see anyone. She barely talks to me when I drop off supplies once a month."

"I don't care," he snapped. There had been an ache inside his chest that had burrowed into blood and bone on the day he'd seen her stand her ground, and it never went away. It was love and relief and anger and fear and resentment all mixed together, breathing as he breathed, living as he lived, growing stronger as the days went past instead of weakening with time.

He needed to see her. He needed to ask her why she was hiding.

Finn's hands fell onto his shoulders, his grip strong and firm. Poe had watched him grow into his skin over the past year, watched a young man change course from running away from the purpose he was giving to running towards one he'd chosen for himself.

Poe had felt oddly off-kilter these past few weeks, watching Finn carry himself with a confidence that used to be familiar to him but that seemed to elude him more with every day.

It was the quiet moments that got to him, when he went to bed at night knowing that he would dream of the blast, that he would feel the heat against his skin, burning and sharp, that the light would sear his retinas until he could see nothing at all. It was when he snapped awake five minutes before the chorno would wake him anyway and remembered the warmth of Rey's skin underneath his hands, and the way his heart leaped when she smiled at him. He'd remember her laugh when she swept his feet out from under him with her saberstaff, because he'd gotten a little too cocky, and the sharp line between her eyebrows when she'd beaten him at sabacc.

"She needs to heal, Poe. Not just physically, but emotionally. That night left scars on all of us. Just give her more time."

"I gave her a year," he said stubbornly. "Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that another year will be enough?"

Finn looked away.

"I am going after her. I will search every damn planet in the galaxy, if I have to. Or you can tell me where she is and save me some time."

"You don't understand. The war... that battle changed her."

Poe looked at him levelly. "War changes all of us," he said quietly. "You know that as well as I do."

Finn rubbed a hand over his face and cursed quietly. A war of loyalties raged behind his eyes, and Poe felt almost bad for putting him into a position where he could be a good friend to one, but not to both of them.

Eventually, Finn gave Poe a long, hard look. "She's on Javin IV. She's staying in the ruins of the old training temple."

"That place burned down years ago."

"You'll understand when you get there," was Finn's cryptic reply. "Listen, when you see her, tell her... tell her–"

"I'll tell her that it wasn't your fault," Poe assured him with the barest hint of a smirk.

There was no telling how Rey would react to him showing up unannounced, but his heart felt lighter knowing that he would see her again.

"No. You will tell her that I said it's time for her to pull her head out of her ass and stop hiding," Finn said with enough feeling that it startled a laugh out of Poe.

"Though if she gets it into her head to come after me, I expect you to be a big damn hero and portect me, alright?"

Poe slapped his shoulder. "You've got it, buddy."

 

* * *

 

Having grown up on Javin IV, Poe knew the terrain well, even though the ruins of Luke's training temple lay on a different landmass than the colony he used to call home.

He landed in the middle of an artificial clearing in the rainforest that covered most of the planet's surface, slung his bag over his shoulder, and hiked the short distance up into the hills. His journey was accompanied by the scuttling of Stintaril high up in the Massassi trees, though their curiosity at finding their territory invaded never went beyond them hiding their furry, long-tailed bodies behind the large, dew-baring leaves whenever he looked up.

The humidity had his flight suit clinging to his skin within minutes, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped out of the forest and onto the wide swathes of grass and wildflowers that marked the edges of the temple grounds.

Turning his face into the breeze, he let his eyes roam across the dilapidated buildings and the crumbling architecture of the gardens that surrounded them. The forest had reclaimed much of what still stood, though scorch marks and heaps of rubble could still be seen beneath the large leaves of the climbing ferns that covered nearly every wall and roof.

The roof of the main temple had collapsed almost a decade ago, and young koyo trees had taken root in the brickwork of the cone-shaped walls, holding the structure together for now, even though their growth would ultimately contribute to their downfall.

A series of smaller huts surrounded the main temple. Some of these were still intact, though they were covered thickly by moss and lichen, and Poe could see a number of different vines clinging to the structures.

What surprised him though, were the flowers. Blue and yellow star blossoms were scattered between bioluminescent orchids of every color, and red flowers in a lavish bell-shape. Black stalks bearing tiny white and sky blue blossoms dipped to and fro in the wind, and when Poe followed the path deeper into the temple grounds, he found himself amongst blooms of every color, shape, and size – a dizzying arrangement of nature's charm and beauty all carefully tended and nurtured through the seasons.

It was the perfect place for Rey.

A place full of green things – of thriving, of living things.

 

* * *

 

She knelt in a vegetable patch.

Unaware of his presence, her gaze was focused on the task at hand, and Poe was grateful for her preoccupation, for it gave him the opportunity to get past the initial shock of seeing her again.

The night that had altered the course of the war was seared into his memories. It haunted him every time he closed his eyes. It left his hands shaking and sweat beading his skin during random moments when he least expected it – when he was suddenly short of breath and felt as if the blast wave was colliding with his body all over again, tossing him into the air, burning afterimages of Rey's silhouette into his memories.

No ordinary person would have survived what she had done.

And though Rey was far from ordinary, she had payed a heavy price for it.

Poe wasn't sure if he'd have recognized her, if she hadn't put her hair up in it's customary three buns.

She was digging neat little rows into which to place the potted seedlings that were perched on a tray beside her. Her hands were moving quickly and with practices ease, their efficiency belying the damage the fire had done to her body.

He knew that she'd spent a month submerged in a bacta tank after Leia had sent her to Corellia. _He_ had only regained consciousness two days later, when the First Order had already surrendered, and Leia had been busily organizing the formation of a new senate.

No ordinary person would have survived the blast of the canon, and in the heat of the moment, he'd thought he'd seen her die.

Seeing her kneeling amongst the plants, a faint smile on her scarred lips, he felt light-headed with relief. During the early days of his recovery, Leia and Finn had assured him over and over that Rey was alive – that she was healing, that she would be okay – but he suddenly realized that he hadn't actually believed it until he saw her with his own eyes.

He stepped forward and found his kneels almost buckling beneath the sheer force of emotions thundering through his chest.

His bag fell out of his numb hand.

"Rey," he breathed.

His bag hit the ground with a soft thud, and Rey flinched.

Startled, hazel eyes met his, and she jumped to her feet. Though it had not been entirely unexpected, her expression being one of alarm rather then joy at seeing him again, hit him harder than he liked to admit.

"Poe," she gasped. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"Finn asked me to give you a message."

A sharp line wrinkled the molten smoothness of her forehead, and she took a few steps back. "Finn? No, he wouldn't. He promised that he wouldn't tell you where I am."

"He wants you to stop hiding."

Watching her shoulders slump and her arms come up to hold herself, Poe had to fight every instinct not to go to her, to wrap her up in his arms and tell her that it was going to to be alright. He wanted to. More than anything he wanted to hold her again, but her body was poised for flight, and he didn't want her to run from him.

"I missed you," he said cautiously.

"You don't understand," she replied, her jaw clenching around the words. "I can't go back. I can't be what they want me to be."

"Rey, the only thing Finn and Leia want for you is to be happy. And the same goes for–"

She cut him off with a bitter laugh. "Happy?" Her hands came up to cover her face before her fingers tangled in her hair. Unlike her skin, it looked unchanged, thick and healthy, even as she tore it from the buns atop her head in frustration. "You have no idea, do you?"

She took another step back, and even though he'd resigned himself to caution only moments ago, Poe stepped forward. "Explain it to me then. Tell me what _you_ want."

Retreating further, Rey looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I want you to leave me alone. I wish you'd never come here. I wish you'd never seen me like this."

There was a hitch in her breath, and she whirled around and jumped over the low wall behind her.

Calling her name, Poe dashed after her. Gravel skittered beneath his feet as he ran along the path between the flowerbeds, but Rey disappeared behind a row of high growing ferns without looking back.

Vaulting over the wall, he followed the path she had taken. Behind the ferns, it ended on the gentle slopes of a grassy knoll. Upon reaching its apex, Poe looked out onto a small lake that spanned the valley before him. Groups of trees and ferns were scattered around the shallow hills, and he could make out the edge of a steep cliff on the far side where the lake fed a narrow waterfall, and mist was drifting up from the bottom, bathing the treetops of the jungle beyond it in a hazy glow.

There was no sign of Rey.

He turned around and searched the gardens by the temple. Though he had hoped that Rey was staying in one or more of the small huts that ringed the main ruin, two hours of fruitless wandering forced him to reconsider. Though some of the huts were in good enough shape to serve as living quarters, Poe couldn't find any signs of habitation within.

In the end, he chose one of the huts for himself and unpacked his bag.

Once he'd shaken out the bedding and prepared it for the night as best as he could, he found himself drawn back to the garden.

Rey had often talked about a place like this – a place to call her own, with flowers and trees growing around a house far away from people. There weren't many things she missed about Jakku, but even after a year in the Resistance, there had still been moments when the hustle and bustle and the cramped living quarters made her long for the quiet solitude of her AT-AT.

She'd used to snuggle close to him at night, when the thin durasteel walls were unable to block the noise of a base of operations that never completely went to sleep, and would press her ear to his chest, letting his heartbeat lull her to sleep. And in the quiet moments before they'd drifted off, they would talk about where they would go after the war was over.

Having been confined to the sands of Jakku for most of her life, Rey thirsted to see the galaxy, to travel far and wide, to see forests, lakes and oceans, climb mountains and stand in the rain. Poe had told her about the planets he had visited, from the ice covered surface of Hoth to the crystal caves on Ilum, and Rey had listened to his tales with sparkling eyes full of longing and excitement.

She had encouraged him to talk about his childhood on Javin IV, and it touched something inside him, like a plucked string resonating throughout his chest, to know that she had chosen the world on which he'd grown up as her refuge.

Striding through her garden, he came upon the place where he'd first seen her, and his gaze swept over the seedlings she'd been planting before he'd interrupted her. Casting his gaze across the flowerbeds, he sank to his knees and picked up her tools.

Since he wasn't going to return to the Resistance anytime soon, he decided to make himself useful.

His hands dug into the cool, moist earth, widening the hole which Rey had dug last. When he was satisfied that it was big enough, he carefully extracted the seedling from it's growing pot and placed it into the earth.

His hands worked slowly and methodically. Gardening was not work to which he was used, but he wanted to get it right. He carefully transferred each seedling from its pot to the patch of earth, making sure to keep the distance between the plants the same, the way Rey had done.

Minutes stretched into hours, and the steady rhythm of repetitive motion settled him and calmed the turmoil of emotions inside his heart.

His thoughts circled around Rey, the determination that radiated off her even as she fled from him. The state of her garden, the effortless strength with which she'd vaulted the wall, all indicators that aside from the extensive scarring of her skin, her body had recovered well from the damage of the battering ram canon.

Of course, he could not account for whatever scars she might bear on her soul that made her adamant to hide herself away in near isolation.

Or was her reticence to come back a matter of insecurity? Did she believe that, because of her injuries, he would no longer love her?

He scoffed quietly at the thought of it and brushed his hands against his thighs to wipe off the dirt. The last seedling was planted. Retrieving water from the lake, he soaked the earth with it.

He would care for Rey's garden, until Rey trusted him enough to care for her.

Night fell, and he shaved by the light of the solitary lamp he'd brought up from the shuttle. His gaze lingered on the scar tissue spanning his chest that was reflected in the shaving mirror.

He wondered if Rey woke up in the middle of the night as well, if her hands started shaking at the flicker of the fire light the way his own did.

He wondered which words would make her stay, how he could convince her not to sent him away again.

Leia was fond of pointing out that while he had words and charm in spades, it were his actions that made her reinstate him as commander – that led her to trust him at a time when words were cheap and their allies had abandoned them.

He dried his face and contemplated his own reflection. Perhaps there was a way to tell Rey that she was not alone that didn't require words.

He dunked his head into the water bowl.

 

* * *

 

The morning sun hadn't yet chased the dew drops off the ferns, though the pervasive humidity was unlikely to let the thickly-bladed plants dry throughout the day.

Poe stretched out on the grass by the lake. He'd stuffed his empty bag with leaves, thus converting it into a pillow. The material scratched against the sensitive skin of his bald head, and it took him a few moments to get comfortable.

He looked up at the sky, watching clouds drift lazily across the ceaseless blue, and wondered when he'd last taken a moment to truly appreciate the world around him. When was the last time that he'd allowed himself to be idle? He couldn't remember when his schedule hadn't been filled from sunup to sundown and, more often than not, into the small hours of the night.

He'd gotten so lost in the tragedies of the past, and, trying to avoid their recurrence in the future, he'd lost sight of the fact that life right here and right now mattered, too.

Lying here, on the edges of the lake, with the sun shining down on him, and a light breeze carrying the scent of Rey's wildflowers to his nose, he felt a pressure inside him ease. He hadn't even realized how tightly he'd been wound, how dealing with the aftermath of the war had him running just as ragged as the war itself.

He remembered joking with Snap and Jessica about how he'd sleep for a whole week once the First Order was defeated, remembered how he'd looked forward to spending time with his father, kicking back a beer and putting his feet up on the patio table on the outskirts of the colony where his parents had settled down.

They would catch up on gossip, and he would introduce Rey to his father, and listen to them discuss the specs of the imperial fleet rusting away on Jakku. And they'd take her to see the grove which his mother had tended before her passing, show her the bioluminescent orchids that grew there glowing in the dusk, and maybe after a few more months and a few more visits, he would invite her to go stargazing in the observatory that had been built high in the tree tops, and there he would sink to his knees and ask her...

He sighed. No use thinking about that now.

A year after the First Order's surrender, he still hadn't done any of those things. Instead, he'd gotten bogged down with political minutiae, which, while necessary, perhaps didn't all have to fall under his purview. He'd never even realized that he'd been taking on so much work until he'd decided to go after Rey, and, by necessity, entrusted tasks to Snap, Jessica and Kaydel, who'd all more than earned their stripes and his trust.

In a way, he had treated going after Rey as a mission, but perhaps it would be better to regard it as an opportunity to figure out if he actually wanted his life to continue the way it had.

His musings were interrupted when Rey's shadow suddenly fell across him. Her arms were crossed beneath her chest, and a frown flattened her brows into a severe line.

"By Riia's shorts, what did you you do?"

Rey had little patience for beating around the bush, so he decided to be straightforward.

"I wanted you to know that it doesn't matter to me how you look. I love you, and that's not going to change because of a little burnt skin," he said bluntly.

"So you shaved your head." Her tone amply conveyed just how ridiculous she thought his grand gesture was, but Poe wasn't perturbed. She wasn't running away, and that was the only thing that mattered.

He even found himself grinning at the fond exasperation on her face. It was a very familiar expression. The first time he'd seen it, she had offered him a hand up, after she'd sent him sprawling onto his back. He'd made the mistake to question her prowess with her staff, and she'd lost no time to prove him wrong.

"I've been told by a very feisty brunette that my hair is one of my most attractive features."

"I suppose I should be glad that you didn't do anything more dramatic, then."

"Excuse you. I'll have you know that many a person has swooned over my curls. Cutting them off will cause palpitations and heartache throughout the galaxy. It doesn't get anymore dramatic then this."

The corners of her lips twitched, and he gave himself a mental pat on the back.

However, her expression sobered almost immediately. "What do you want from me, Poe?"

He had many, many answers to that question. When he'd woken up in the med bay, convinced that she'd died in the blast, he'd wanted her to be alive. After Leia had told him that she was recuperating, he'd wanted her to heal, he'd wanted to be by her side, had wanted to keep her safe. Once Finn had told him that she'd left, he'd wanted to know why she'd refused to see him. And when he'd arrived on Javin IV, he'd wanted to convince her to come back with him.

Looking up at her now, at the determined line of her mouth, her unyielding stance, and the guarded shadows in her eyes, he told her a much simpler truth.

"I want you to know that you are loved – that you have friends who miss you, and that they – and I – are here for you, if you only let us."

The look in her eyes softened. It felt a little like watching a glacier thaw, a slow but steady waning, leaving bare, but fertile ground in it's wake, where a seed of kindness might sprout leaf and blossom under a gentle sun.

She rubbed her hands across her upper arms and settled down next to him, where her fingers wove through the thick-bladed grass next to her thighs.

"You can be really sweet, sometimes."

"Just sometimes, eh? And here I thought my charm was irresistible."

"Oh, did you, really?" she asked, her voice as dry as the desert, and he got the distinct impression that she only barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

"I was counting on it, to be honest."

"To convince me to go back with you?"

He nodded.

"Finn and Leia keep telling me the same thing. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they sent you."

"Technically, they didn't sent me. I had to threaten Finn with the most gruesome, horrible ways of torture–" There was that fond exasperation again. "Finn told me where you are because he is worried for you."

He reached out to touch her face and was glad when she didn't flinch away. He'd half expected her to. Instead, she placed her hand on top of his and pressed it against her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered, and he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes.

"That feels nice." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, weighed down with so much longing that it closed up his throat. Whatever her reasons for hiding, they'd left her lonely and starving for human touch.

His thumb brushed over the unnatural smoothness of her cheek. Her skin might have looked like heated candle wax, but it felt soft and warm and alive.

A bead of moisture dropped onto his fingertip, and she abruptly pulled away.

"I can't go back, Poe. I can't let– I don't want them to look at me as if–" her voice broke.

"Rey, you can't possible think that your injuries matter to any of us. If you hadn't put yourself between that canon and the rest of us, we would all be dead. You saved our lives; you saved the entire Resistance. You _ended_ the war."

It seemed unfathomable, that Rey, who'd grown up on Jakku, living on scraps and fighting for her survival every day, would care about her altered appearance. She'd lived amongst species of all shapes and seizes and features. Did she really think her friends would look at her with pity instead of compassion?

Yet, with every word that fell from his mouth, she seemed to shrink into herself, until her shoulders were nearly up around her ears.

"You think I've kept everyone at arm's length, because of the way I look?"

"It doesn't matter. Not to me, and not to Finn or Rose or Leia." He reached for her hand, and pulled her palm flat against his beating heart. "I love you. I don't care how badly the blast injured you, I'm just glad that you're alive."

Her short nails dug into the fabric of his shirt, and she closed her eyes tight enough for shallow lines to fan out from their corners. She inhaled shakily. The air was still. It felt as if the entire jungle was holding its breath.

"This is not from the blast, Poe. The Force did this to me."

It took him a long moment before her words made sense inside his head, but when they did, the air left his lungs in a rush.

He'd seen Snoke, of course – cleaved skull and exposed tendons, his skin marked and burned as if doused with acid – and he'd seen plenty of holovids of Emperor Palpatine – skin like molten wax and sunken eyes – the result of Force users channeling power beyond their mortal bodies' ability to wiled it.

"I thought that only dark side users are affected this way."

Her hand trembled against his chest, and the truth dawned on him like a bolt of lightning that splits the trunk of a tree.

"I was angry, Poe. So angry, I can't describe it. We'd been running from the First Order for months, and every time we clawed back a little bit of ground, every time we gained another ally, they came back and struck us down. They were going to level the entire town. They weren't even a threat to the Order. They had no weapons, no stake in the war, they'd just given us food and shelter, just a place to rest and regroup for a couple of days, and they were going to die. All because they'd been kind to us."

"Rey–" he began, his heart aching, but she interrupted him.

"The order– I wanted them dead." Tears fell onto her cheeks, and when she finally opened her eyes, the fire and ashes of that night burned in her gaze and right into his soul.

"When I stepped out into that field, I didn't just want to protect the town, I wanted to tear the First Order down. I wanted to rip it apart." A chocked sob fell from her quivering lips. "I killed them, Poe. I destroyed three Star Destroyers and a Dreadnought. I killed half a million people. _I did that._ And I can't forgive myself for it."

"You saved thousands that day," he told her fiercely. "And don't forget the people who died when the First Order destroyed the Hosnian system. They killed billions in order to destabilize–"

"This is not a game of numbers," she interrupted him. "They were people. They may have done horrific things, but how many of them were like Finn – taken as children and growing up with the lies of the First Order? How man might have turned if given the chance? How many had families they will never return to? How many children did I leave without parents?"

"Fuck. Rey." The curse fell from his lips before he could stop it. Without waiting for permission, he put his arms around her and pulled her against his chest.

"I can't go back," she sobbed. "When Leia and Finn talk about what I did, they make it sound as if I'm some sort of hero, but I'm not. I'm a monster."

His protest was instantaneous, but she continued as if she hadn't heard him.

"I never understood why Ben so readily accepted me calling him that, but now I do. I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew how wrong it was, and I did it anyway. There's no coming back from that."

Poe cradled her in his arms and let her cry.

He was no stranger to the guilt she felt. Though his military training helped him compartmentalize most of the death and destruction he'd seen or caused, he would be lying if he claimed that he'd never wrestled with sleep or wondered about the people he'd killed in the line of duty. Nights could get long and lonely on hyperspace flights, and unwelcome thoughts had a way of burrowing into dreams, turning them dark and restless, and making him ask question to which he had no answer.

Rey was barely more than a civilian, her Jedi training aborted days after it had begun, and though her life on Jakku had not been easy, there was a difference between killing a rival scavenger in self-defense and eradicating an entire host of faceless, nameless enemies in the midst of war.

He gently brushed his thumb against the nape of her neck until she'd stopped trembling.

"You are not a monster, sweetheart," he said, lips brushing against her temple. "I wish you could see yourself through my eyes and realize how far you are from deserving that name."

"I see my reflection in the water every day," she said quietly as she wiped her cheeks. "I don't exactly need the reminder, but what the Force did to me is probably the only consequence I will ever face for my actions."

"Is that why you chose exile?" Poe asked. "Because you think you deserve to be punished?"

A small noise fell from her lips, caught somewhere between a bitter laugh and a groan. "Look around you. This place isn't exactly a prison cell."

"It's beautiful, but you're still alone with your thoughts and your regrets, and I don't think that's healthy."

"I can't hurt anyone, if I'm alone."

"You can't heal either."

"I don't deserve–"

"Yes, you do," he interrupted her fiercely. Cupping her face in his hands, he drew back so he could meet her eyes. "You are _not_ a monster," he repeated forcefully. "And you're not a danger to anyone. You can't hide yourself away from people for the rest of your life because of a decision you made under, what most people would agree, were extraordinary circumstances.

"I understand that you don't want to be paraded in front of holocams and politicians and be heralded as a hero when the way you feel about that day is the exact opposite, but who are you helping by going into exile? Do you think it helped Luke?

“You were the one who tried to convince him to come back. You saw what a decade of isolation did to him. So tell me... Did Luke make the right decision back then? Was anyone actually better off because he refused to face that one moment of weakness that changed everything? Or could he have used his gift and his knowledge to help us from the start? Would there not have been atonement in that?"

Rey pulled away from him. "That's not the same."

He let her go, but rose to his feet along with her. "It's similar enough."

Facing away from him, Rey hugged herself. "I can't go back with you," she said with a finality that settled like a lead weight inside his stomach. "I'm not ready to face them."

He tentatively put his hands on her upper arms and placed his body close enough to hers so he could feel her warmth bleed into his chest. "I'm not asking you to come back with me. I'm asking you to let me stay."

She bowed her head. "I can't ask you to do that. You have a life–"

"You're not asking, I'm offering. Leia has plenty of people she can delegate to; she doesn't need me. I want to be here with you. I don't want you to be alone."

Silence fell between them while Rey stared across the lake, and the sun slowly rose towards its zenith.

When she finally placed one of her hands on top of his, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"You won't try to change my mind?" she asked pensively.

"Oh, I will absolutely try to change your mind," Poe replied, a teasing smirk tugging at the edges of his mouth when she turned around. "But there's no rush; we have time. And let's be honest... considering my charming personality, there will come the day when you will want to leave the planet just to get away from me."

Her snort was music to his ears, but when she looked at him, her eyes were haunted.

"I can't promise you that I'll ever be ready."

That was not something he worried about. He may have only known Rey for a little over a year before she'd disappeared, but that had been more than enough time to realize that she was a fighter who never gave up.

"When I came here, I told myself that all I wanted was for you to tell me why you didn't want to see me, but I have a different question for you now. When Finn told me that you'd gone to Javin IV, I thought that you might have chosen this planet because you knew I grew up here, but now I think you chose this place because of Luke."

"That's not really a question."

"No, but what I want to know is this: Is your garden a memorial? Is it a reminder of Luke's failing, or did you try to prove to yourself that something new and beautiful – something worthwhile – can grow out of destruction and regrets?"

"That's very philosophical of you."

He put on a dignified air. "There are hidden depth to my character which you don't even know about."

Amusement danced in her big, brown eyes. "You're incorrigible."

"That's not really an answer," he replied, turning her own words back on her.

Rey cast her gaze down the slopes towards the temple grounds. Bright sunlight cast the flowers that stretched across nearly the entire plateau into a sea of vivid colors.

"I didn't really have a plan when I got here. It was just a place that called to me. I can feel the Force in every seed that takes root and every drop of water that flows through the lake. I started with a few orchids down by the toppled wall that surrounds the apprentice huts, and the more I concentrated on the work, the less I felt as if I'd never be whole again. So I just kept going."

A helpless shrug accompanied her words. "I don't know if there's any deeper meaning to it than that. If anything, I tried not to think about it."

Poe tugged a strand of hair behind her ear. "That's okay. We'll figure it out." He offered her his hand. "Together?"

He watched the line of her jaw tighten as she looked at his hand. Her fingers slipped slowly between his. Her touch was warm and strong, and Poe felt a tiny shiver of familiar excitement race down his spine.

He pulled her closer, and she leaned into him.

"I am glad that you came after me," she said quietly. "I missed you."

He rested his forehead against hers as a fragile seed of hope took root inside his chest.

"I missed you, too."

 


End file.
